Observations for 25 July 2014
Walked up on West Triplet in eruption. Fortunately, this time I didn’t have to wait. Turban started, and almost immediately it had that sound that said something was happening back there. After a minute, I could hear the boiling and surging from Grand, kicking off the eruption.
The eruption itself lasted almost 11 minutes, and surprising, Vent and Turban did not stop afterwards.
After getting back to the cabin, I spent some time getting caught up on the previous day’s events and other little tasks. So while I was in bed at 05:00, I was still not asleep. It was then that I could hear this vague rumbling coming from outside. It could have been Old Faithful (or a car) but duration and tone said it was Beehive. I noted that time,and then finally fell asleep. Turns out I was right.
Unable to sleep in, so went down to Fan & Mortar, and got fooled by the Bottom Vent splashing. Wasn’t aware that it’s quite common when the Angle Always On mode pauses briefly.
Once again, the wait at Grand consisted of every Turban eruption duration being shorter than the previous, along with longer intervals until Grand finally erupted. Like the previous eruption in the dark, Grand took about a minute of waves and pouring out water before it finally erupted. The duration of the eruption was just under twelve minutes.
During the wait, the wind started up again, but as the day progressed it wasn’t anywhere near as gusty as yesterday, and with the cool temperatures, made for pleasant waits.
The evening Grand eruption was quite similar to the previous two, in terms of eruption behavior. Another one burst eruption that started with Turban and which took Grand almost a minute to join into. West Triplet also started during the one burst Grand eruption.
To bring an end to the day, was awakened by a radio call for Beehive’s Indicator, just before my alarm was set to wake up for Grand’s next eruption. Didn’t go out to Beehive, so I ended up hearing a second consecutive eruption from inside my cabin.
The road crews were busy on the bike trail. Unfortunately, I don’t think they’ve done anything lasting. They dumped gravel in along the high edges and tamped it down, but the only place they’ve actually put asphalt was in a hole in the middle of the trail at Castle. In other places, the steep drop-offs are still there, especially up by the Inn.
And the latest bit of weirdness is the missing bench at Grand. Seems a few days ago, one of the new plastic benches on the northwest side fell over. That’s the direction in which most of Grand’s spray is directed, especially at night, and the supports just rusted out. Looking at the other nearby benches, they are probably going to follow it in the near future. So for now there are three orange traffic cones over the places where the base for the supports were attached to the walkway.